A critical time in Tasmania's forests : Melbourne Indymedia

It is a critical time in Tasmania's forests.

As fires raged across Tasmania yesterday as a result of extreme weather conditions, 60 local community members braved the heat and threat of arrest and walked into the Weld Valley Exclusion Zone in Southern Tasmania.

This was a brave act, considering that on Friday, Forestry Tasmania took the Huon Valley Environment Centre, and various individuals involved in the centre, to the Supreme Court. They sought an injunction to stop the community walk in on Sunday, and indeed future involvement in the Weld Valley campaign. The application for an injunction was dismissed due to inadmissable evidence, however both the Environment Centre and individuals involved are under continual threat from legal action from both Forestry Tasmania and Gunns ltd.

Really it should be the other way around. Forestry Tasmania and Gunns ltd should be under constant legal threat as they mismanage and destroy a vitally important part of our environmental future. Forestry Tasmania and Gunns ltd. should be in the law courts justifying why, in a time when it has become critical for humans to adopt new ways of utilising our natural resources, they continue to employ the worst, most destructive methods possible in their logging of our old growth forests.

The practice of clear-felling in Tasmania has been likened to the worst logging practices employed in third world countries - and is based on the principle of total destruction. The whole forest ecosystem is destroyed, less than half the timber removed, the rest burnt to strip the earth bare to make way for the mono-culture plantations. The native animals are then poisoned so they don't eat the seedlings, and as the plantations grow so too do the weeds and thistles that spread and contaminate local properties and infest natural environments. This practice is not sustainable and needs to be stopped immediately. I find it hard to believe that in the 21st century - with all the information we have about the challenges that face us environmentally and as a global community - that this practice could be employed at all.

The recent landmark Federal Court Weilangta case brought by Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown against Forestry Tasmania, delivered a decision that proves Forestry Tasmania are not adhering to the environmental guidelines. Forestry Tasmania's operations were found to be illegal and are threatening endangered species including Wedge Tailed Eagle, Swift Parrot and Weilangta Stag Beetle.

Who is holding these companies accountable for their actions?

It is only the actions of concerned local community members that are bringing this gross mismanagement of our native forests to light - and they are being persecuted both in the courts and socially as a result.

Here in Tasmania government and forestry industry propaganda is very effective in demonising environmentalists and polarising the attitudes of the community. Thanks to the Gunns 20 lawsuits, and ongoing legal and personal attacks that people who are defending the forests face, many community members are too scared to stand up for the forests down here for fear of litigation and the social stigma of being portrayed as a 'greenie'.

The "shoot a feral" and "bulldoze/pulp/shoot a greenie" stickers are commonplace in Tasmania. The divide between the pro-logging community and conservationists is only getting wider as the stakes become higher. I could barely believe it when, during last years election campaign, I witnessed people in balaclava's towing advertising trailers around with anti-green slogans on them stating "Green: Dangerous, Extreme". Anti-green advertisements which blanketed the state were also linked to the "Exclusive Brethren" - a right wing religious group with links to the Liberal party. These are the attitudes and values that exist and thrive in this state - and I feel despairing over our ability to overcome the deep hatred that exists within this community. It is not an "us vs them" issue - it is an all of us issue - it is the issue of all of our future - and we all need to come together as an integrated community to work out how to meet the environmental challenges that we are to face.

Environmentalists are not the 'bad guys' down here in Tasmania. It is the pro-logging government (and opposition) and Gunns Ltd who are stripping our future away and destroying what makes this island so unique and special - its' natural environment. Environmentalists are, and always have been, champions for the future - and despite what governments and big business lead people to believe, it does not have to be at the cost of the economy if we are smart about it. Indeed, Australia - with its geographical isolation and relatively harmonious social landscape - could become a leading example for the rest of the global community in the way it approaches climate change and resource management.

However if we are not smart about it and continue down the path we are currently on, then basically there will be no economy - as the planet simply can not sustain the damage caused by human activity at its current rate. The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change only confirms the serious nature of the future challenges we face and our need for immediate action. (see http://www.ippc.ch/ for full report).

Climate Change and the impacts that we are having on our natural environment is no longer a 'minority' group issue - it is now mainstream news and it seems that it is only our Prime Minister and a few other skeptics who will not acknowledge it as truth. Last night on Sixty Minutes I watched a story on how the polar bears in Northern Canada are all starving as a result of the ice melting and them not having enough hunting grounds to support them. I could not help but wonder if it will not be us humans in 20 years time as the world becomes increasingly unable to support us. Maybe we too will have to eat each other in desperation. Sounds crazy and melodramatic but its not inconceivable - particularly as the IPPC report is being criticised as giving a too conservative view on the seriousness of how climate change will impact on our future.

It is interesting to see Richard Branson offer a $32 million reward for someone to come up with an invention to reduce/transform the carbon in our atmosphere. Maybe he would be better to spend that $32 million on revegetating the earth, or at least buying back our forests from these multinational companies whose only goal is profit at the cost of all our futures.The future looks bleaker for all of us unless drastic action is taken now. We are at a critical juncture in human history. The forests are an integral part of the climate change picture - not only do they help provide the oxygen we breathe, they are also carbon sinks and logging them releases the carbon back into the atmosphere. In Tasmania approximately 25% of greenhouse gas emissions comes from forestry and land use changes.

As I sit here and write this there are people out in the Weld Valley forests locked on to machinery trying to prevent further destruction of these high conservation value forests, and a log truck has just driven through town with messages on it written by Forestry contractors targeting members of the Environment Centre. Out in the Florentine - another spectacular area of high conservation forests that borders the World Heritage area - people are in tree-sits trying to prevent logging of some of the most beautiful big old trees I have ever seen - even though that area too is now being declared an exclusion zone. Despite being classed as an illegal act - nonviolent direct action is a last resort for activists after lobbying and negotiation fails. With a pro-logging government in power here in Tasmania, we can write letters and lobby till the cows come home but it is not making any difference. The ethos behind direct action is that if it stops work for one day - then it is one day more that those forests will be standing, with hope that more and more people will stand up for our future and force the government to halt the destruction.

People are putting their lives on the line by chaining themselves to machinery and facing threats from contractors, plus they have to face the legal ramifications of their actions as well. When environmentalists are being taken to court by companies like Forestry Tasmania and Gunns Ltd, who have huge amounts of money, resources and power to support them, they face thousands and thousands of dollars in costs (which most ordinary every day people do not have). However when Forestry Tasmania had the injunction quashed on Friday by Judge Underwood, it was the taxpayer who had to foot the bill. It does not seem fair and it is not right.

It is a critical time in Tasmania's forests and the responsibility of protecting them for the future health of this planet lies with all of us. The battle down here is not just for the forests - it is for life itself. A lot of us have children and we feel deep concern for their future. We are not crackpots. We are not bad people. We are just every day people trying to do what we can to protect what see essential to our future survival. I ask that all Australians educate themselves on the future projections of climate change, and start fighting for their future too.

For further comment
Nicole Pietsch
0429333960

Image: Clearfell operation at the end of Eddy Spur Rd, where activists have been attempting to stop logging.